“Did you ever program an Arduino? Have you ever been worried about complex control flows written in pure C? Maybe you have already heard of statecharts and state machines?

YAKINDU Statechart Tools for Arduino is based on Eclipse, YAKINDU Statechart Tools, and the Eclipse C/C++ Development Tooling (CDT). It sets up an initial project containing an empty statechart that you just need to fill with your own ideas. The only part that you still need to program on your own is the connection between the statechart and the hardware, i.e. initializing the hardware and updating the state of the hardware depending on the state of the statechart and vice-versa.”

August 20, 2016

When you need a Waveform Generator but just have a Record Player the obvious solution is to create a Waveform Generator Record Player. This creation uses a 3D printed head for the record player arm and has some simple optics mounted. Similar optics that would be used in a line following car feedback the pattern. Swapping the disk changes the pattern.

“The light sensor is a 3 mm Everlight ALS-PT204-6C/L177. It was chosen because it responds to standard visible light, rather than infrared. I want it to see what I see.

The light sensor connects to +5VDC and to the middle pin of trimpot R3 (100 kΩ). My trimpot was dialed to about 20 kΩ, but you’ll need to adjust it based on the light conditions and distance to the target. The goal is to create as large of a signal as possible, with a compromise between flattening the top of the wave and the bottom of the wave.”

August 7, 2016

DIY PCBs are quite simple to make these days but DIY Flexible Circuit Boards are still something that is not easy and also not common in most PCB production houses. With this technique you can now dabble with flexible boards in your next project.

“A fairly new elastomeric rubber filament is now available that sticks quite well to copper. It is called Ninjaflex. In fact, it sticks quite well to almost anything including acrylic, blue painters tape, and glass.

A circuit board pattern can be drawn in a free program like 123D Design and then extruded to a thin thickness and saved as an STL file. It can then be printed on top of a thin copper clad board or plated conductive fabric: step 1 pic. It can then be etched in the standard way with a Ferric Chloride solution.”

August 6, 2016

The Tesla Gigafactory is still being built. It is huge but the building will be much larger when completed. Tesla and Panasonic are in a joint venture in this building. Full production is slated for 2018. Full production will be 500,000 to 1,500,000 packs per year! Automated battery construction for the win.

August 5, 2016

Keep your fingers clear of these machines! If you are looking for a job that is bound to eventually take off one of your fingers some of these machines are sure to help with that. Fantastic machines but most are very dangerous.